No, not a grasshopper, I saw as she danced toward us. The head looked similar, but the four walking legs were short and stout, the several others mere boneless appendages. The gaudy hide was skin, not chitin. I saw that the creature breathed with lungs, too. Nonetheless it was a startling monster; and it drooled.

“Insular genus,” Vaughan said. “Undoubtedly harmless, or she wouldn’t—But a child, coming so casually—!”

Baldinger grinned and lowered his rifle. “What the hell,” he said, “to a kid everything’s equally wonderful. This is a break for our side. She’ll give us a good recommendation to her elders.”

The little girl (damn it, I will call her that) walked to within a meter of Haraszthy, turned those big eyes up and up till they met his piratical face, and trilled with an irresistible smile:

“Please, mister, could I have a cracker for my oontatherium?”

* * *

I don’t quite remember the next few minutes. They were confused. Eventually we found ourselves, the whole five, walking down a sun-speckled woodland path. The girl skipped beside us, chattering like a xylophone. The monster lumbered behind, chewing messily on what we had given it. When the light struck those compound eyes I thought of a jewel chest.

“My name is Mierna,” the girl said, “and my father makes things out of wood, I don’t know what that’s called in English, please tell me, oh, carpentry, thank you, you’re a nice man. My father thinks a lot. My mother makes songs. They are very pretty songs. She sent me out to get some sweet grass for a borning couch, because her assistant wife is going to born a baby soon, but when I saw you come down just the way Pengwil told, I knew I should say hello instead and take you to Taori. That’s our village. We have twenty-five houses. And sheds and a Thinking Hall that’s bigger than the one in Riru. Pengwil said crackers are awful tasty, Could I have one too?”

Haraszthy obliged in a numb fashion. Vaughan shook himself and fairly snapped, “How do you know our language?”

“Why, everybody does in Taori. Since Pengwil came and taught us. That was three days ago. We’ve been hoping and hoping you would come. They’ll be so jealous in Riru! But we’ll let them visit if they ask us nicely.”

“Pengwil…a Dannicarian name, all right,” Baldinger muttered. “But they never heard of this island till I showed them our map. And they couldn’t cross the ocean in those dugouts of theirs! It’s against the prevailing winds, and square sails—”

“Oh, Pengwil’s boat can sail right into the wind,” Mierna laughed. “I saw him myself, he took everybody for rides, and now my father’s making a boat like that too, only better.”

“Why did Pengwil come here?” Vaughan asked.

“To see what there was. He’s from a place called Folat. They have such funny names in Dannicar, and they dress funny too, don’t they, mister?”

“Folat…yes, I remember, a community a ways north of our camp,” Baldinger said.